


Three Curses to Carry

by orphan_account



Series: Forged in Fires [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Doran Martell is a bro, Gen, Investigation, Rule 63 (female Peter Parker), Some parts in Game of Thrones some in Marvel, not quite linear storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24038803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You could have told me. I could have helped.”“You are just as much at risk.”“Spider-Woman is at risk.” Petra raised a brow. “Petra Parker is not at risk. Furthermore, Petrhaella Targaryen is not a known entity, and therefore does not face anywhere near the same dangers that even Petra Parker might.”
Relationships: Pepper Potts & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Doran Martell, Peter Parker & Jon Snow, Peter Parker & Robert Baratheon, Peter Parker & Sansa Stark, Peter Parker & The Faceless Man
Series: Forged in Fires [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731361
Kudos: 7





	1. On Pain of Burning Flames

Fire was nothing new, certainly. The trip to New York felt oddly symmetrical, in some ways. Falling into Valyria involved falling through a portal that burned her, opened by the Vulture. She would never know if it was intentional or accidental, had stopped wondering after a while. Valyria had been the heat of constant fires, amplified by the dragons and the Candles. She spent so much time in fire and heat, after a while she stopped feeling the burn as pain, but as a familiar embrace.

The Doom of Valyria, though, that was what stood out to her when she thought about her current situation. She had warned him, had warned about the possibility that there would be consequences if they moved to quickly, but he had not listened. He had, instead, pursued his god and his goals and then the fire had rained on them because he had not looked ahead to the consequences of his actions.

Before that, though, she had felt the heat far more acutely in the caves of Valyria. She had sat on the hot stone, had been the one that the elderly woman had gone to when she asked for the Gift. She had nursed Petra when she showed up, the few days the Masters allowed her to be nursed before demanding she be tested for her fitness to work. She was thrown into the labor before she was wrapped up in the fervor of the rumors of a new god, of He of Many Faces, and she had never considered what her role could possibly have been until the elderly woman approached her. She came to her in the night, asked her to give the gift privately in the night. To let her die in peace and without attention to it.

Her only other request of Petra had been to stay with her, to hear her last words and thoughts and witness her last breaths. She did not want to die alone, she said, but she did not want to stay on this land if she had years of painful work in front of her.

She had come to Petra five times. She had hesitated the first several, but as the woman came to her, more desperate each time, she wondered why it was that the Many Faced God would have called for deaths in the styles of an assassination, if he was even truly calling for deaths at all. Providing mercy to those who otherwise had a terrible and long fate before them, providing them the means to end their life on their terms as it were, would be just as much the work of the Many Faced God.

Petra had not been particularly religious before all this. May was Catholic, Ben had been loosely Protestant. She had never really understood the purpose of church outside of creating a community. The slaveholds of Valyria offered a different perspective, offered something else to the argument for religion. Death, after all, would come for them all. Would come for her and her masters, and in the end there was nothing that would stop it and nothing that would save them.

They would walk into the arms of He with Many Faces and there would be no escaping that God. None that she had, at that point, witnessed.

*

The stone had been so hot. That was what she noticed. She had to sneak into an alchemist’s office during her work to find a book that might have contained information on poisons, but her ability to read Valyrian was still so very limited and based almost entirely on guesswork based on the language it had taken her nearly two years to learn well enough not to meet a whip for hesitating to do her job while she tried to decipher the commands. She only had mere moments in the days and weeks after she was approached, the days and weeks wherein she saw how the elderly woman was treated for the things her age made difficult and there was nothing but an extension and increase of the suffering awaiting the woman, wherein she could take peeks at the book.

It was not nearly enough, but soon someone noticed. Someone who had better skill in reading Valyrian than she did and who was loyal to the first of them. He found what she was looking for, found where to get it, and told her to be careful with it.

“There isn’t much around, and this was all I could find in the vaults. It’s easy enough to make, but no one wants it getting out. A painless death and nothing to suggest what killed a man, that’s dangerous in the hands of slaves like us.”

It was, if she was going to follow in the foots of the Faceless Man and kill one of the masters. Instead, she took it and was careful to prevent the glass from ever breaking.

Merely holding the poison made her queasy, the idea of administering it only making her more so. Her work declined in the few days following, she bore the scars of that and the memory of the days of hunger in punishment for it. She was approached two more times after acquiring the poison, each time meaning to say yes and not managing it, choking back the yes and asking the elderly woman if she was sure, really sure.

She had nothing to live for, she said. Her family were dead or sold, she had no one left.

The fifth and final time, Petra had nodded. Had told her what day the others who followed or at least listened when the Faceless Man spoke of He of Many Faces would be gone and to come with her that evening. There was an alcove, she promised, a hidden away, warm alcove where she could meet her end in privacy and dignity.

The elderly woman wore scarves and jackets where many slaves were happy with the thinnest fabrics they could get their hands on, the heat of Valyria being oppressive throughout the day and regardless of the time of year. She was old, she said, she was plagued by the chill of old age. She was going to be glad to be done with these bones, to be free of her corpse and in the arms of the gods.

Petra had met her at the opening to the cave, had guided her to the promised alcove in one of the hottest parts, closest to where one could approach the volcanic pits before the heat was simply too much and they met their end. She had expected to give the woman the poison and leave, knowing it may take some time for her to pass. She had not expected the hand on her arm, the kind eyes.

“Stay, child.”

“I’m twenty-three.” She did not know why that was her immediate response, or why it was said with a smile when she was taking this woman’s life. It was as though there was a joke between them, for all they barely knew each other, though. “I’m hardly a child.”

It was the right thing to say. The woman gave her a sly glance with a smile that may have carried laughter, if it were not for the fatigue in her. “Ah, but you’re so youthful, so young at heart.

“May you burn long as the fires across the lands, as bright as the Fourteen Candles, may you long outlive your captors and chains, and may you come to know great joy, in your time.”

She was as serious as she was gentle in delivering those words. She was off on a different subject moments later, but Petra had felt it. Felt how the heat of the stone started rising up in her, how calming it was, that heat. Like a presence she had not known to miss.

She stayed with the woman the whole time, whispering to her when she complained of old aches, of the firm and uncomfortable stone. Listening as she talked of her dead siblings, her lost children. Of her years laboring under the same masters as Petra. The woman drew her last, and when Petra broke her gaze from the body it was to see the Faceless Man before her.

“I do not remember ordering you to do anything, acolyte.”

“I am not one of your acolytes.”

“You come to my sermons, listen to my words, and now you do the work of the Many-Faced God. You are as much an acolyte as any of the others.”

“You said it yourself. You did not order this of me.”

The Faceless Man sat across from her. In time, she would come to resent his presence, but now, when her emotions were running high, it was almost reassuring to have someone implying she had done the right thing. “The Many-Faced God, He is not merely vengeful. He can be merciful, too, as you were this night.” He stood. “Clean the body, and bury her in the dark soil to the East. She deserves proper care in death, as all do.”

*

Those first weeks and months were the oddest, she would admit. She would feel calm in moments and then feel the heat that she absorbed pushing, pushing, _pushing_ to be released, to burn, to break and bend. She had little control over it until she realized she could release even just the warmth, when needed, could let the pressure out in small bursts.

So far past those first few months, it seemed a wonder it had taken her that long to put it together.

But that heat, that impulse to absorb and release and cycle through the fire and the heat served her well for many years, and she would see that it continued to serve her well, even in the chaos that was being surrounded by fire, constantly, in the form of electricity once she met ground in her home once again. In the meantime, as she acclimated to the omnipresence of the fires, her reflections harkened back to that which was being kept from her.

Hiding the information, she could recognize, had something approaching noble purpose. Pepper had said, not realizing she was listening, that she worried about putting things on her that she may not have been ready for. Petra had long since learned, however, that life was one battle following another. A cycle, a constant and unending cycle that broke or formed you whether you were prepared or not.

The flames danced across her hands and she thought of the hot stone. Thought of the formation of the Iron Man. If she were the one taking these enhanced people, if she were to hide them, she would not want them to be looking for a way out. Or, if they were, she would want them feeling as trapped as they ever had.

Iron Man had been kept in a desert cave. In sweltering heat by day, if she had to guess. And he had smithed a suit from the weapons there, according to all official stories. Should she have been the one holding them, for whatever purpose that was, she would want him to have that shred of hope. No bodies had turned up, no ransoms demanded or credit taken. There was a purpose to this, and keeping them alive would necessitate enough hope to keep them going.

The Boltons had known that. Even when they were at their most sadistic, the hope of getting away, of finding refuge, of escaping torment was enough to push their victims through until they were done with them. She had only crossed paths with the Boltons once, only ever officially, but she had heard the tales and seen the pride in them. The Flayed Man of House Bolton stood strong in her memory, a testament to the more gruesome nature of humanity when she started to believe that perhaps things would change.

There would always be that sick element to the entire species. She was no saint herself, she had the taint of it as much as anyone else did. 

The cave, she decided, was somewhere to start. Something to think on, to begin looking for answers on where the missing Avengers were being held.


	2. And the Ache of a Long-Suffered Heart

There were years that felt like a flicker of the candle and weeks that felt longer than the entire rest of her life. Back home, there had been a quote to that effect, had she bothered remembering it from her history classes. Her faith, if it was that, in the Many-Faced God questioned her very existence, in that death had yet to visit her. Still, seeing He of Many Faces impacting the lives of others was enough to reaffirm that he at least walked the halls of the world. The fear seen in the Faith of the Seven, that fear of death, was something she would not understand, when death was ultimately a gift.

Sunspear was one of her favorite places, in all the years and travels she had had. The weather was often mild or warm, a call to her for the warmth of the fires she craved. Taking refuge there in the aftermath of Robert’s Rebellion had been an option only in the course of luck. Rhaegar had discarded Elia, made her children bastards and thrown the winds of war to the South just as quickly as Aerys threw them to the North in killing the Lord and Heir of Winterfell. Some days she would gladly watch the entire dynasty fall just to take the madness from the realm, to allow the people something approaching stability.

_When a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin._

She certainly wished she had not been brought into that fold. Her children, her grandchildren, the actions of each generation were, perhaps, their own. But she had brought Aegon I and his sisters into this world. There would not be the people there to take those actions had it not been for her marriage, however questionable in validity, to Jaehaerys.

Her fingers trailed the books in the Sunspear library. Careful writing from the hands of generations of people, many long dead and the end of their particular lines, having taken vows as Maesters. Doran had been tutoring her in Valyrian writing, the type of thing she had aspired to for years. There was a long, long quiet piece of her that was resigned to her abilities being limited by those around her. Doran, however, was more than willing to feed the intellectual abilities in whatever directions she wished.

Elia, she remembered, had loved her books. She was so careful, though, to keep her wit and her knowledge from the sights of King Aerys. Elia was one of many she had seen die. She had known many to die, but Elia. Elia was a sweet child, young and a new mother in all the ways that counted. In her fumbling, looking for the best way to bring up Aegon, Rhaenys. She had looked to Petra, to her Queen Mother for the advice that her own mother could only give her through letters that would not come in time to address the problems of her immediate questions or challenges.

Elia Martell had been one of the kinder queens, one of the softer women to take a place beside the Iron Throne. She had been raised in this heat and this culture that put the value of love as a value itself. Bastards, born of passion, not a shame.

It almost reminded her of a home long behind her.

*

Pepper did not share information about the missing Avengers. She wished to help, wished to search him out, but Pepper brushed her fears aside; there were people working on it, she said, people with more resources and who were completely dedicated to finding the missing. The missing, a group, a large number of enhanced individuals.

How did Pepper not see it?

*

Doran had petitioned to have her kept as hostage in Sunspear. The King wanted her dead, wanted her pulled from Sunspear and executed before the people; the last of the Targaryen dynasty taken to the slaughter to truly end the line. End the claim they could put forth to the Throne.

The King, therefore, had come to Sunspear to see his will done.

Doran welcomed him without telling him of her location. She had dressed down, taken out her hair, and hidden among the kitchen servants, away from prying eyes. She would not have been important until later, anyway, but it gave her time to hear the rumors sweeping the keep.

Rumors of a man that was besieged by the kind of anger and hatred that never truly died. The kind that men were free to act upon, but women were chained to suffer. The King had little in the way of support in Dorne, and surely his people were aware of it. That would explain why they sent servants into the kitchens to test and retrieve the food themselves, not allowing anything to be served by one of those working in Sunspear. She made sure to stay on the kitchens, to avoid the staging area the King’s men used. She was not going to be seen, not yet. Not until it was time to negotiate her fate.

In the meantime, when she was not hiding among workers given barely a second glance, she was taking the time to peek at the men brought alongside the Usurper King.

Fate was fickle, she had learned. Certainly, Robert Baratheon was the King of Westeros, and certainly the power was shifting towards him and would continue to do so, so long as his dynasty could hold its power and legitimacy in the eyes of the other nobles. The smallfolk would only notice the shift if it came to disturb their lives more than normal; there was nothing to prevent the shift in power, and she knew that as well as Doran did.

But the Usurper still had to keep the angered and aggrieved parties satisfied. And if there was one party no one could predict, it was Prince Doran Martell, who had been bereaved at the lost of his sister and her children. His sister, whom he knew had shared a closeness with Petra. Their only bargaining chip was the most likely thing to get her killed.

*

There was a logic in the goings on of the investigation, Petra thought as she laid Morgan to bed, if one was looking at their methods from their perspective. If the Avengers were being targeted to be kidnapped, then it was a group at work, therefore the group would want their prisoners easily watched. But holding them so long, there could not have been an attempt to hold them together. People, however much they resented one another and would gladly fight each other, would unite against a common enemy, and therefore the group could not be kept together. Not if they were enhanced. It would give them too many opportunities.

There was a logic in the disappearances. The missing Avengers had all been on individual missions, disappeared in the thick of things, only noticed after things calmed down enough to take stalk of who was where. One by one, as though there was only so much the kidnappers could handle. They hadn’t thought, evidently, to work together once more in order to prevent this kind of thing happening. No, once more mens’ egos were far more important than pertinent and logical action. Days like these she found herself missing Tywin Lannister, if only for his fierce pragmatism. They hated one another, were too much alike in personality for all they differed in values, religion, and politics if she listened to Olenna Tyrell, but they at least could agree on one thing: survival was paramount, and practicality was the strongest argument for prolonging ones own life.

Evidently, the Avengers never learned that. She looked back towards Morgan. The girl was sweet, shy and innocent and waiting for her precious father to come home to her. And here she was, asking the same two questions every night. The first was for Petra to sing one of her “other world” songs. The second was when Tony would come home.

It was always the innocents who suffered when the powerful had designs on resolving their conflicts through less than diplomatic means.

*

Her death was avoided, ultimately, because when appealing to the losses Petra had just suffered failed, when appealing to the history Petra represented, having lived through Aegon’s conquest and through all the Targaryen kings to follow him failed, they had one bargaining chip left. Robert Baratheon remembered his grandmother.

“And you would not want to begin your reign with a stain upon your soul as black as kinslaying, would you, King Robert?”

Doran was good. It had occurred to her that they were related, that perhaps she could use that. She had dismissed it based on the sheer distance between them, but Robert was far younger. She looked close to him in age, looked not an elder but a woman who people may sympathize with. Petra followed Doran’s lead.

“I remember your grandmother. She was a fiery woman, so much passion in her. She always said that you had the makings of a ruler, if you had been born elsewhere in the Targaryen line.

“I wanted to believe her, believe her that you would be a good king.” She wondered when lying had become so simple, and then she remembered the years she spent when lying was the only thing to save her from fists and blows. “If you kill me, Robert, you betray her memory and all her aspirations for you.”

Robert scowled. Petra refilled his wine, taking the open seat between Doran and Robert. Certainly this was a risk, but it was calculated. Robert was an angry man, but he had to have something to him, something human to him that people harkened to.

“You’re a filthy Targaryen whore.”

“I was married into the line. Much like your grandmother married into the Baratheons.

“Did that ever make her a Baratheon?”

When he spit in her face and called her an abomination, she was silent. It was hardly the first time. Instead she held the victory close to her, when he looked to Doran and barked, “You keep her in your sights, Doran. You keep her hostage here.

“This Targaryen bitch isn’t to be let free. Otherwise, it’ll be your head.”

It was hardly the first time she was a captive, either. She was not new to these things. At least for once she would be suffering captivity, suffering disdain from one in power, from such a comfortable seat and with decent company. 


	3. You May Only See Joy in the Distance, Far From Your Grasp

She couldn’t be mad at Pepper, not really.

“You could have told me. I could have helped.”

“You are just as much at risk.”

“Spider-Woman is at risk.” Petra raised a brow. “Petra Parker is not at risk. Furthermore, Petrhaella Targaryen is not a known entity, and therefore does not face anywhere near the same dangers that even Petra Parker might.”

“Where did that name come from?”

Petra felt her lips tighten. She had hated the name, at first. “My husband. It was a modification, in a sense, into his language.”

Pepper nodded. “Tony is my husband, Petra. I want him home safe. But more than that, I do not want any more guilt on his conscious, and if you were to get hurt trying to help him, then he would feel guilt for it. You know how he is.”

The conversation is cut off by a phone call, and there is no promise in Pepper to revisit it. That is fine, but Petra’s resolve hardens. She knows the risks, understands them, has analyzed them as much as she can. She cannot stand by, however, because Morgan asks her every night, Morgan asks Pepper at dinner, and she has a look in her eyes when she doesn’t notice the people around her.

Morgan aches for her father, for the family she is missing, and Petra knows that ache, and knows that there is some chance here for her to take that pain away.

She remembered her fourth child, the one between Aegon and Rhaenys, who had died within hours of birth. She remembered her grandchild, Aenys, poisoned by her own daughter. The pain of the betrayal meeting the pain of mourning, she had been of an age she could at least recognize the pain for what it was. Morgan was three, all she knew was her beloved father was gone from her, with no explanation.

*

Sansa Stark was something of an inspiration, if she was honest. A girl suffering long at the hands of others, she had come out of everything far ahead of others. That she was to command the Lightbringer was no surprise, when Petra finally put it together.

She first met her just after her family’s deaths. The Red Wedding was whispered of across Westeros; a violation of Guests’ Right had shaken the culture to its core, and rightfully so. It was a vital tenant to the rules governing the people, one of few rules that was not mandated by the Septons or the King. It was given some religious context, certainly, but people spoke of Guests’ Right as a known and accepted fact, as a part of the world that was not questioned or to be questioned.

Petra resented that Tywin Lannister – and who else could have convinced Walder Frey to violate the Guests’ Right so cavalierly? – would have taken the war to a wedding.

Oberyn had asked her to leave his brother’s side in the Water Gardens – a movement of her sentence under Doran’s supervision, and a commute of her sentence she gladly accepted – and to accompany him to a different wedding. Olenna had certainly outdone herself this time, getting her granddaughter married to the King after she had been married so shortly before.

Westeros had been the host of far too many weddings, though, and all good things carried the promise of an end, of a negative turn.

Oberyn had been abrupt in taking his leave with Ellaria, and Petra could understand his desire to leave with his lover. Had she not had to be so careful, she might have considered taking a lover during her time in Dorne. She certainly had met a man or two (and a few women, though she was far freer in her affections with women while in the borders of Dorne, their general acceptance of love as a concept giving her the leeway for such ‘dalliances’). She could not give the space for there to be any children, particularly, as they would be in immediate danger, not only of their likely execution by Robert Baratheon, but of manipulations for the Throne should they survive.

Oberyn and Ellaria’s departure, however, left Petra to handle the diplomatic introductions with the Lannisters.

Little Lord Tyrion was the one waiting for them. Master of Coin, and the only Lannister whose reputation did not, in theory, cause direct harm to others. Drinking and whoring were pernicious vices in their own ways, but largely they harmed the one to partake. The worst harm he could be doing would be to his young wife.

“Lord Tyrion.”

“Queen Mother, I had not expected you.”

Queen Mother, a title borne of her long life. Even when not in Westeros, her return had been met by her descendants as an excuse for some sort of celebration; she was, to them, a reminder of the history of the Targaryen rule.

“Oberyn thought it would do me well to travel and see something outside of Dorne. I must admit, I had not realized twenty years had passed; the people of Dorne needed help, and I am a capable set of hands.”

“You set an admirable example, Queen Mother Petrhaella.” Tyrion was not meeting her eyes, but he was gesturing for her to follow.

Oberyn’s party did not wait around, but Petra had not expected them to stick around long, had expected the anger of Elia’s death to be remaining. Doran had specifically asked her to smooth whatever relations would be necessary in order to keep Oberyn out of unnecessary trouble. Doran and Oberyn had different designs on avenging Elia, and Petra was not going to question them in the interest of plausible deniability for however little that would be worth should she become a Lannister prisoner.

“I hear you have taken a wife.” Petra smiled toward him. They both knew she was taking measure of him. “I also hear she has lost her family.”

“It is unfortunate, their deaths.” He looked around, peering for spies. “Their murders have taken their toll on her, I’m afraid.”

“War leaves more victims than it takes.” Petra considered his concern. Certainly not a complaint, given the distant look in his eyes. “If you would like, I would gladly counsel her.”

“Having lost her mother, I’m not certain that would be welcome.”

“Counsel is not always most effective when it is welcome, but when it remains in our minds.” She smiled. “Besides, Oberyn is going to be awfully busy for a while, and I’m curious to meet the current Lady Stark.”

*

Tony Stark had gone missing in the middle of New York City, in full armor. That armor was heavy, not easily removed. She wasn’t sure if it was opened from the outside, and she could not seek that information out without revealing her activity towards finding him. Pepper had not explicitly asked her to stay away from the search, and that was her only out in the event of an argument on the matter.

Full armor, the middle of the city. Somewhere underground, likely, and if his captor was smart it would be somewhere he was held in isolation or near isolation.

Petra made a list of these things and searched the information, the use of a computer starting to come back to her as old skills often did. She would have to teach this to Jaehaerys, she considered, as he might appreciate the skill in this world. He might just appreciate having access to the scale of human knowledge the internet would grant him.

*

Sansa had intrigued her, though she was careful to put her curiosity on the back burner when they met. She focused, instead, on offering her a shoulder for her grief.

“I have nothing to gain from your pain, Lady Sansa.” Petra was sitting across from Sansa, a small amount of food on the table under the guise of feeding herself following her travels; Tyrion had mentioned she was not eating in her grief. “I do, however, have a long knowledge of loss, and a heart from which I would offer my deepest condolences for your grief.

“You are not the first to have your family killed in the name of victory in warfare. You will not be the last. And yet, neither of these things help.

“I hope, in time, you may find peace.”

Sansa took her own measure. She was learning, was smarter than Olenna gave her credit for; she likely knew how much she could push the boundary before she suffered consequences. Sansa was careful when she spoke again. “My husband is one of them, a Lannister.”

“A Lannister by birth.”

Sansa pursed her lips. “Isn’t that enough?”

“What can you tell me of Tyrion?”

Sansa looked up. “Have you not heard of his reputation?”

“What do you think of your husband, Lady Sansa?”

“I don’t know what I think.” She sighed. “He is a Lannister. He flouts it, certainly, and he waves the name around as much as the rest of them.”

“But?”

“He has not done me harm. Not… He did not force me on our wedding night, even though he would have been within his rights.”

Petra still held consent important, even if this world did not. She hurt to hear such a cavalier justification of marital rape, but she knew that the law would have been on Tyrion’s side had he forced Sansa.

“I will not tell you to eat. I will not tell you how to grieve or how to pursue your marriage.

“I will tell you, however, that there are few kind men in the world; most of them either hide it or are extremely careful. If the role of husband is too much to bear in your life, I would encourage you to consider approaching Lord Tyrion in the pursuance of a friendship.”

Sansa picked at her nailbed, she glanced towards the food if she thought Petra wasn’t looking. Petra was careful to look away enough to give Sansa this room, and was glad to see it. Pulling some of the fruit from the plate, she pushed it towards Sansa. “Eat, if you wish. I certainly won’t eat all of this, anyway, and I would not want it wasted.”

“I…”

“I will always be available to you, Lady Sansa. But I would still encourage you to eat something, to look after yourself and your welfare. Unfortunately, those that could do so for you are no longer of this world. Death is a brutal thing, but death is also constant. That much I can promise you.”

*

Petra continued her digging until she found something that stood out, something that rang with the right mark, the right feeling to it.

She had a lead. She had a direction to go in her search.

She felt a tightness in her chest, a pressure in her throat. The anticipation of the fight.

She would go, she knew. But was she ready? 


End file.
